2 



THE BOOK OF GARDENING. 



Sallust, Lucullus, Seneca, and many another planned their gardens, 

 and thus laboured for Horticulture in those far-off days. Again^ 

 from time immemorial, gardens have been associated with progress, 

 and they were wont to be regarded as civilising and refining 

 influences. In fact, we are told upon excellent authority, that it is 

 only among the most brutal and degraded races of savages that 

 gardening is unknown. 



So far as England itself is concerned, Horticulture made but 

 very slow progress until the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries — 

 a time when Gerard, Gervase Markham, and John Parkinson 

 began, by their writings, to make their influence felt. How far 

 we had advanced prior to this, is shown by the restricted list of 

 subjects then known to cultivation. It is, however, the last fifty 

 years that mark an epoch in gardening. During that time 

 Horticultural Science has advanced by leaps and bounds, but at 

 no period has it been so practically understood, or had so many 

 workers in its ample field, or even offered such scope for enter- 

 prise, as now. Treated commercially, it is, of course, not a 

 field in which those who, having been unsuccessful in other 

 walks of life, can embark with safety, though popularly it is 

 supposed to be so. Yet for the man of intelligence, enterprise, 

 and dogged perseverance, the possibilities are great indeed. 



And what, too, of the educational value of Horticulture — of 

 its refining influence ? Money, it is true, will purchase all the 

 products of a garden, but it cannot purchase the pleasures 

 connected with their raising. Each inteUigent worker in the 

 field of Horticulture finds that gradually those difficulties which 

 appeared insurmountable are overcome as if by magic. What 

 looked like hidden mysteries stand out as plain truths. Thus 

 is Nature revealing her choicest secrets. As, too, the store of 

 knowledge increases, so is the interest quickened, until the 

 guiding principles of the Science are in the proverbial nutshell. 



Much of the popularity Horticulture now enjoys is due to 

 an intelligent Press, to the fostering influence of those societies 

 which have sprung up all over the country, to the yeoman 

 service rendered by the Parish Councils, and, lastly, to the 

 many excellent handbooks which have been published. The 

 Literature of the subject is vast, and increases with the 

 growth of knowledge ; but the information is not always in the 

 most accessible form. Books on special branches of Horti- 

 culture are issued in great profusion, but the all-round gardener is 

 not and has not been at all well catered for. Books devoted to 



